Saturday, December 18, 2010

It's Scopitone Saturday! Watch Joi Lansing get trapped in 'The Web Of Love'!

That's right ScopiSubjects, we're bringing back the feature where it all started (the feature that, coincidentally, gave us our name) with one of our favorite Scopitones. 

Yes.  Yes we're excited too.

Scopitones were the first real music videos, back in the 60's, but were produced on special film that could only be played in jukebox-like video machines that were set up in bars and bowling alleys and the like all over the world.  Because that made them super practical.

Anyhoodle, the boxes were generally located in drinking establishments, so the videos were allowed to be racier than just about any other media at the time.  Scopitones were wildly popular for a brief time (we think it was a week in January of '67) and almost all the biggest artists of the day recorded at least one.  Eventually the format died out, but not before we were left with a treasure trove of ACTUAL MUSICAL GEMS, like this subtle and understated classic - maybe our favorite Scopitone of all time.

It has all the things you'd expect from a mid-century adult-themed pop video - sex, overt racism, overtly racist sex, and a giant spiderweb made of boating rope because, why not?

This particular Scopitone holds a special place in our heart, because it foretold nearly every music video device we take for granted, like the liberal use of boobs, the co-opting of religious imagery, and singing in a birdcage with some wings and shit stuck to you.  So basically everything Miley has ever done.

Feast your eyes on Joi Lansing, as she gets caught in a 'Web Of Love'


Leighton Meester is a 'Summer Girl' in new video - watch the preview now!

Smell my finger
Well this is neat.

Leighton Meester, who musically fornicated with Robin Thicke, slummed it with Cobra Starship, and chucked out some BONA FIDE CORKERS from her still-unreleased electropop debut album and then inexplicably forgot all about the fact that she could sing, is FINALLY back on the pop radar.  It's just a bit....different than what we expected her next move to be.

Not so long ago, Miss Meester was poised to become the American Sophie Ellis-Bextor, with some top shelf jams and her already cemented fashion icon status.  But alas, somehow the project got shelved, and she's been all quiet on the music front for quite some time.  


From her new movie "Country Strong," 'Summer Girl' is a sort of post-Taylor Swift pop-country effort with those kind of lyrics that are so insipid that they almost become clever and the hooks that you just can't deny.  It's certainly not bad, and oddly Leighton makes quite the convincing country chick. 

We still love our Leighton electro, but in the meantime we'll take what we can get.



"Country Strong" gets its nationwide release January 8